


Memories of Midsummer

by GoatBazaarofFics, protect-him (protect_him)



Series: A Crown of Poppies and Feathers [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fauns, Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 05:18:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13000686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoatBazaarofFics/pseuds/GoatBazaarofFics, https://archiveofourown.org/users/protect_him/pseuds/protect-him
Summary: Leto and his sister Varania are celebrating the greatest celebration of the year for fauns.They stray only a little too close to the human world.





	Memories of Midsummer

“Varania, mama said not to go this way!”

Varania giggled and pulled her pipes from the pouch at her waist. Soft, auburn goat fur covered her delicate legs, which danced across the grass, black hooves barely touching the earth.

Leto laughed as she whistled cheerfully. Varania only danced faster, playing her pipes.

“Leto, you’re too careful,” Varania said playfully. “All the  _ best _ flowers are in this meadow.”

Leto’s slender legs bounded after his sister. They crested the hill and Leto stopped short.

The meadow sloped down from the crest of the hill, a blinding sea of golds and reds and purples and blues. Leto’s gaze swept across the sight. Thousands of flowers mixed their colors and scents in an almost hypnotic tableau of everything the fauns celebrated on this summer day.

It was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

“I told you!” Varania said, popping up in front of him. Her pipes were stowed again and she wriggled her hips playfully, jumping away at the last moment before her brother could grab her.

“Varania!” Leto laughed. “We shouldn’t be here!” Yet he followed her down into the meadow, drawn by the beauty of the flowers.

“It’s Midsummer!” Varania called, already scooping up armfuls of flowers. “We need to gather the best flowers for the celebration!”

Leto looked around one last time. The meadow was bordered in the greater part by the forest where the fauns lived. A peaceful pond covered another part. The last portion of the meadow’s border was open fields and a human road, the most dangerous of all things for the fauns.

Yet the road right now appeared deserted, everything looked safe.

Leto began to pick flowers as well. He knelt down, folding his fur-coated legs neatly beneath him and began to collect a collection of pink, yellow, and purple flowers on his lap.

“Leto! I have an idea,” Varania bubbled, suddenly dropping down next to him. “There are so many flowers, let’s do each other’s before we take some back.”

Leto looked at his sister with an eager grin.

“Yes, let’s!” He agreed quickly, now fully entranced by the peaceful magic of the meadow. The summer sun heated their brown shoulders and noses and danced off the surface of the pond. Butterflies and small birds fluttered just above the nodding sea of blossoms. Most overwhelming of all was the heady scent of flowers, earth, and plants that hung like a fog all around them. Leto loved the sun and the butterflies and the feel of the gentle summer breeze, only barely cooler than the air itself, but most of all, he loved the smell. He reached up and playfully tugged the tip of one of his sister’s horns. As a female, her horns were a good deal shorter than his, but still long enough to decorate and grab in play, as they often did when chasing each other.

“Leto!”

“Turn, Vanya,” Leto said, using his pet name for his sister. She darted out a hand and hooked a flower in Leto’s dark hair at the base of one of his horns before turning her back to him and settling comfortably in the tall grass. Leto was already looking down and fingering the brilliant flowers in his lap when she placed the flower in his hair. He smiled and looked up at the beautiful cascade of her hair. The burnished auburn shone and he reached up to simply stroke it. Her hair was warm from the sunshine and when Leto inhaled, it smelled like her—like forest sap, velvety moss, and shy pansies.

He had already been picking flowers that he intended to weave into her hair, so he had all he needed to begin. The yellow ones he wove in around the crown of her head, twisting the long stems in with her hair, his deft slender fingers tugging, but never yanking hard enough to hurt. As he wove towards her shoulders, he added the pink flowers: big, beautiful flowers with pale centers and yellow pollen hidden where the strongest scent was kept like a secret. As he gently scooped back her hair from her throat and the line of her jaw, he added the purple flowers. These were smaller, but he had gathered so many that it took him much longer to finish.

“There!” He declared, tucking the last strands in. The weaving was intricate, but with his forest magic and the help of the flowers, no matter how much Varania danced later, her hair would not come loose and the flowers would not fall out.

Varania jumped up, her arms still full of flowers, and pranced around her brother.

Leto laughed, turning to follow her.

“Now it’s my turn,” Leto said, jumping after her. She giggled and danced playfully out of his reach. He bounded after her, unable to resist giving chase.

With a shriek, Varania tossed the flowers in her arms aside and ran ahead of him towards the far end of the meadow. Leto ran after her, his long, dark hair streaming behind him.

Suddenly he halted as Varania turned to tease him. Several dark shapes were rising up out of the grass behind her.  _ Humans _ . And they were so close to his sister, their misshapen arms and bodies draped in strange clothes stretching out to her.

Leto hurried towards her, but Varania only laughed and danced backwards, her hooves playfully tearing up the soil.

She was so close to the humans now, they almost had her.

“No!” Leto shouted, reaching for her. “Vanya!”

“Varania, what is this?” Fenris asked, looking around the pantry. The other faun had summoned him here but he did not understand why. “What are these flowers? I should not be away from our master long.”

“Fenris, it’s Midsummer,” Varania said in a hushed voice. She insisted to Fenris that she was his sister. He did not remember, but then they were both fauns, perhaps she told him the truth.

“Midsummer.” He said slowly. The word seemed to stir something in him. His brands ached. “What is that?”

Varania looked pained. She gestured him to come closer. Fenris obeyed, his hooves sounding dully on the dusty floor.

“Sit here,” Varania said, patting an old bench. Fenris rarely understood what Varania was talking about, but she was friendly to him, and they were the same kind of creature, after all, and both belonged to the same master, though where Fenris wore a large, heavy collar, Varania’s was slender and indicated that she was not so valuable as he.

She seemed to resent the collar and pulled at it now.

Fenris sat down next to her.

“Do not scratch at it,” he said gently, echoing the same words that she often told him. With his heavier collar, his skin was often raw and he would try to scratch beneath the metal when his mind wandered.

“Dan is busy with guests,” Varania said. “He is away on his Midsummer’s hunt into the forest.”

“Don’t call him that,” Fenris chided.

“I won’t call him Master when he can’t hear me,” Varania said, snorting.

Fenris looked hurt and worried, but said nothing. Varania was like this, and he had learned that he could not persuade her to be more obedient.

“Now, turn to look at the wall,” Varania said. Years ago, Fenris had been taller than her, but as they had grown into maturity under their master’s watchful eye, their heights had evened out. Fenris was still just a little taller. Varania got up and tugged at an old chest in the corner until she was able to drag it out and open it.

“We shouldn’t be in here,” Fenris said nervously, glancing over his shoulder at her.

“Fen, I need to show you something.” Varania said, her usually audacious voice taking on a sad tone that made Fenris look at her more closely. Varania sighed.

“I know you don’t remember. Because of Dan and those painful markings he put on you,” she said. “But Midsummer is your favorite. Here.” She knelt to pull out a handful of flowers from the chest. They weren’t all fresh, and some were wilty or broken.

Fenris hummed quizzically. She talked about him like this sometimes, about things he liked or didn’t like, as though she knew him better than he knew himself.

“I’ll show you,” Varania said, sitting down behind Fenris. “Look straight ahead. You’ll see.”

Fenris turned. He could afford to humor her right now. Their master was away and Varania was his friend. She couldn’t do anything he couldn’t hide later. Flowers could be tossed away or crushed, even eaten if necessary.

Fenris waited, and then felt the brush of Varania’s hand as she stroked his hair. She ran her fingers through it—she insisted his hair used to be dark—then began pulling strands together. As she worked, starting at the top of his head, she tucked flowers in, braiding the stems into his hair as well.

“The flowers look so pretty in your white hair,” Varania said softly. “Perhaps Danarius will let you keep them.”

“No,” Fenris said sternly. “We will destroy them before he returns.”

“You can’t do that,” Varania said. “The forest magic will keep them there for days, and you aren’t supposed to take them out until Midsummer is over at least.”

Fenris sighed. How could she not understand? Perhaps their master was too lenient with her. She did not understand that everything must be exactly as Danarius wanted. Nothing else mattered.

Still, Fenris could feel some deep sense of  _ rightness _ in his chest as Varania pulled on his hair. It never hurt, she was simply weaving it together. Fenris felt calm and relaxed, almost happy.

“You did this for me, long ago,” Varania whispered. “When I showed you the meadow, the day Dan took us away.”

Fenris blinked. He did not remember. He had no memories of being outside of his master’s estate, except on grand visits when he went with Danarius as his pet, leashed and meek with his head bowed.

“I don’t remember,” was all he could say.

“I know,” Varania replied. “Remember this, though. The longest day of the year is Midsummer, and you will feel it inside, like a little tug.” She tugged his hair playfully and smiled. Fenris’s playfulness of years ago was long gone, though, and her face grew thoughtful again.

“We celebrate with flowers,” Varania continued. “You always loved poppies. I would put them in your hair. You looked like a forest prince.”

Fenris was not convinced.

“Are you finished?” He asked. She tucked the last strand of his hair in and secured it with the last of her wilting flowers.

“I wish I had more flowers,” Varania said. “It’s done.”

Fenris stood, reaching up to feel at the elaborate display she had made of his hair.

“Master won’t like this,” he said.

The next moment, the door opened, and a stern voice spoke.

“Master won’t like what?”

Fenris’s legs buckled and he pressed his face to the floor.

“I should have known you were the one spoiling him,” Danarius growled pointedly at Varania. “Whatever you were once, you are no longer. I will decide your punishment presently. Fenris.”

Fenris flinched.

“You are to present yourself for twenty lashes to Hadriana after you have gotten that ridiculous getup out of your hair.” Fenris nodded hurriedly and scurried from the room. Despite the roughness with which he tore the flowers from his hair, he still thought of that nice feeling even as Hadriana laughed and tethered his collar to the floor of the punishment chamber.

He closed his eyes and felt the throbbing pull in his chest.  _ Midsummer _ . He could almost smell the sun-warmed soil, the dry grass, and the faint scent of poppies. He felt like if he could just squeeze his eyes tight enough shut, he’d be able to remember. Maybe the memories were there. Maybe Varania was telling the truth. His heart ached with something he couldn’t yet put into words.

At the first sting across his shoulders, his breath stuttered, but the word was clear in his mind: longing. At the next: home. Hadriana cackled and Fenris braced for the next blow. The words kept coming: freedom, sun, poppies, dance. Somehow, Fenris felt his confidence in his belonging  _ here _ being shaken. He belonged somewhere  _ else. _ He didn’t remember it, but it had something to do with the feeling in his chest. A meadow where he wove flowers into Varania’s hair. Midsummer.


End file.
